The 6-hour trip from Brussels on the "Train of Great Speed" passesthrough the God-Part of Lion and X-in-the-Province (I'm translatinghere for your convenience) before it reaches its final destination.

As cities go, Marseille is delightfully BRUTAL: in terms of port-towngrunginess, parts are way beyond Rotterdam and Antwerp, fallingsomewhere between Thessaloniki and the west side docks of Manhattan.Even the women speak French with a kind of tough-guy accent. When I'dmentioned to various people that I'd be going to Marseille, a coupleof them reacted as though I'd said I was going to vacation in Newark.Now I know why.

The guidebooks and newspapers and travel websites call it "France'smost cosmopolitan city". The adjective is a code-word, however: Parisis obviously the most cosmopolitan. What Marseille is, is the mostracially integrated. On the one hand, some tell me that the NorthAfricans there are mostly Algerians (unlike Brussels, where most ofthe North Africans are Moroccan Berbers which, strictly speaking, evenmakes them non-Arabs). On the other hand, I've also heard and surmisedthat in Marseille they seem to have come from all over -- Algeria,Morocco, Tunisia, also Egypt, and also some Lebanese (who no doubtfeel some affinity, since the place was supposedly first settled bythe Phoenicians 2600 years ago) -- basically, everywhere around theMediterranean where the French had some kind of colonial presence.

But mention must be made of the Greeks in all this, since they werethe ones responsible for the expansion from a trading post to anactual port and the actual planning of the city: this accounts forthe presence of Greek surnames among families in Marseille to thisday, some traceable back to the original settlers, and it alsoaccounts for my feeling uncanny similarities between some of thedodgier hillside neighborhoods in Marseille and the working-classresidential quarters up the hill from the port in Thessaloniki.

Since the Arabs began arriving not long after World War II, evenbefore Algerian independence, most of those now in Marseille aretotally assimilated -- which in France also means impeccably groomedand dressed. It's somewhat startling, like the Arab version of beingin a Texas town where half the population looks like Alberto Gonzalezand Jennifer Lopez.

Also, rather fewer Africans in Marseille than I expected. In Brusselsthey're mostly Congolese, whereas I got a sense that in Marseille mostcome from Senegal.

By the morning of Day 2, I already caught on to the HUGE number ofmixed-race couples: Arabs with Europeans, Europeans with Blacks, Arabswith Blacks. It got to a point where I would see an ethnically mixedcouple with a stroller approaching and I'd try to guess what their kidwould look like. Ergo, the ethnic mix that Marseille is currentlyundergoing must be like that of New Orleans and the Caribbean twocenturies ago.

The food is a chapter unto itself. It lived up to one's expectationsof being in France, but you do have to seek out the right stuff. Ispent a huge part of Sunday afternoon and part of Sunday eveningwandering (and lounging) around the Cours Julien neighborhoodhighlighted in the NYTimes article, and damn if I could find a placethat was open on a Sunday, not closed for vacation, with a cook on thepremises.

I had bouilliabaise twice. The first encounter was in a tourist-traprestaurant where what they served up bore as much resemblance to thereal thing as a platinum-wigged transvestite hooker does to MarilynMonroe. The second time I dropped by a place patronized by locals onegeneration older than me. The bleached-blonde MILF Arab waitresscheerfully read the description of the joint in my copy of the LonelyPlanet, yelled out the gist of it to the cook in back, who approved,and then in order to recommend other places for bouilliabaise shequickly marked at least 8 other addresses in the gastronomical sectionof my guidebook. And if what they treated me to was merely theireveryday run-of-the-mill offering, I'd love to return some eveningwith three other people and order up a big batch with at least 7varieties of fish and shellfish.

HUGE percentage of assimilated-Arab staff in Marseille restaurants ofall classes. It's funny to walk into a place, inquire as to the platdu jour, and have a flawlessly clad, steamy-sexy Arab woman makeunfaltering eye contact with you and enumerate the specials of the dayand their most notable ingredients in perfectly enunciated French anda tone of steely utter seriousness. When it comes to food in France,there's no room for kidding around.

As tourists in other places, the French have acquired a pretty badrep. I recently saw an article reporting the results of a French-runpoll for some travel publication, and they were the most consistentlydisliked by other countries when they're tourists there. HOWEVER: inthe course of a couple days, I figured out why:

After my experiences in Central and Eastern Europe, and the sullen,indolent indifference usually demonstrated by Belgian servicepersonnel, in Marseille I was amazed. The sudden shift in diet(morning espresso instead of tea, very few dairy products, etc)necessitated some unscheduled trips to the loo, and on severaloccasions people let me use their WC even when it was clear that Iwasn't going to be a paying customer. (Of course, using a publictoilet in France is an adventure in itself, but never mind.) I walkedinto a pharmacy because I needed to check a phone number & address,and the woman behind the counter retrieved their phone directory fromthe back with no complaint -- whereas in other countries, the staffwould huffily claim that they don't have one and send you on your way.

And therefore, when they go abroad, the French probably (quitereasonably) expect service personnel to be equally accommodating andefficient.

If you're ever there, pray that it's not a summer day when the fogaccumulated overnight just hangs over the city: worse than meremugginess, it's essentially a fetid, airborne mix of mildew and algae.Every city in Europe has its characteristic odor that's at its worstin the summer; Marseille's is like a tropical shower stall or hammamthat hasn't been cleaned for three weeks. But when it does clear, thesea air is most salubrious. You can get a sense of all the balmygemutlichkeit by having a look here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marseillehttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Marseille

And in conclusion, some literary notes:

I wish to set the record straight: recently, when I identified variousinfluences on my GASTRONOMICAL HAIKU and cited GEORGES BATAILLE, I did*not* have in mind the early 20th-centurysurrealist-socialist-pervert, but rather the well-known contemporarytraiteur in Marseille who is mentioned on these webpages, par exemple:

Finally, if any French Symbolist poet were to ever try to claim thatMarseille is a great place to die, the guy wouldn't have a leg tostand on. ;)

Mark Sinker respondez: I *love* Marseille -- it's the most exciting city I've ever been in(admittedly I was travelling with the most exciting woman I know, back whenshe wasn't safely coupled up with a er er very sweet young fellow boo bah).You can feel the crackle of 2500 years of negotiating the multi-culturalshove and pushback, and the physical geography reflect it: it's a big bowlof a place, the twoerblocks marching off up the semi-distant mountains, withknobs of volcanic rock punching up through the plain, every single on builton for centuries, AND the whole lot riddled beneath with a crumblingrats-maze of catacombs. Vick tried to by a house there -- the first someonesaid to her, "This is house is TAKEN" very meaninfully (meaning gangsterswere kindly letting her know she should look elsewhere); the first the townsurveyor said "Well, it's a lovely house, but it could fall thorugh thecrust of this rise into the underground Roman ruins AT ANY MINUTE, so Ican't approve the pruchase). Frank Kogan adds (in response to M. Le F.'s PS:I thought of you when I looked at the NYTimes site this morning and sawthis:http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/travel/10Hours.html )

"Be grateful that about the only species not represented in the form oftaxidermy on the walls (or the menu) of Buckhorn Exchange, billed as Denver'soldest restaurant, is the donkey (1000 Osage Street; 303-534-9505;www.buckhornexchange.com). Here, steak can be ordered by the pound, about$45 per."

My friend Mara works there! (But I've never been to the place, my weeklyfood budget itself being about $45.)

As the article itself demonstrates, tourist offerings in the city are prettyslim. Most tourists who come through here are on their way to the Rockies.Good zoo and good botanical gardens, however. And the baseball stadium isthought of highly, though I've never been in it.

Also, of the four cities I've lived in (Rome, New York, and San Franciscobeing the other three), Denver is by far the least integrated.

I read a NY Times article six months or so ago about ethnic relations inMarseille, the thesis of the article being that civic leaders there makeethnic understanding and peace a high priority, and have been by and largesuccessful.